It's really quite terrible especially for the non-chinese who
can't speak mandarin in Singapore and it's not fair to them because
the official business language is English
And if the old hokkien speaking uncle at the kopitiam can learn
to speak English, I don't see why those young PRCs can't!
Then again I think they think Mandarin is the only language in
the world. Just last month I think there was this article about
this PRC guy who got beaten up in a PRC resturant in China because
he placed an order in English because he had been living in USA for
like the past 10 or 20 years and is used to speaking English.
I understand they are proud about their language, but sometimes
it is going overboard.
I remember of an incident where I was buying a drink in a
neighborhood stall, the drink list was written in English. Since I
do not know how to call the drink in Mandarin, I thought it would
work if I just point to the one I want in the list. Surprisingly
the person who tended the stall told me she could not read the list
and repeatedly asked me to tell her in Mandarin. When I tried my
best to figure out how to say it in Mandarin, she said,"Wa so slow
ah! Want to order a drink also have to think for so long!"
I was like wtf. I was trying to help her ended up got scolded. I
have been boycotting the stall ever since.
Another incident happened in IMM, with the dessert stall. I
wanted to order peanut soup with the tang yuan balls inside and I
saw someone before me ordered that. So I said to the auntie tending
the stall in Mandarin, that I wanted the same as the customer
before me. She then asked me,"Say out your order." So I said it
while pointing to the menu so that there was no mistake. But
apparently I must have mispronounced some words because she
proceeded to correct me and then added in some snide remarks like
"So easy also don't know how to say." And then she told me cannot
have tang yuan balls inside the peanut soup. I was too lazy to
argue with her so I just had it without.